I am a passionate entrepreneur, digital strategist, social scientist and farmhand / vineyard cultivator.
6 Feb
As I have shared in previous posts, I have been enjoying participating in, learning from, and collecting my thoughts on the part longstanding part burgeoning-emerging DC new media/tech community. As I have said before, there are undoubtedly many many groups that meet, organize, take action, support one another, etc. that I have yet to discover, but am excited to do so. One such group is OLPC-LC-DC, introduced to me by Jesse and his ownership and philanthropy around the XO laptop (aka, One Laptop Per Child). Photo credit to JESS3 as well
Jesse repping the XO-team here:

Going to events in DC and talking with the passionate users, developers, strategists and community organizers NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME. What wonderful people, aspirations and action.
And so, without further a-do… here are my thoughts + a quick plug: please check out these organizations and individuals… super amazing, wonderful, awesomeness.
WSSSSSSTTT! PSSSSSSSHHHHHT! No, my caps lock button did not sabotage the keyboard whilst randomly selecting keystrokes. That is literally the sound made when one XO laptop (a.k.a., the One Laptop Per Child [OLPC]) speaks to, well, another One. Warning: A lot of acronyms will be thrown around in this article. Wherever possible, I have hyperlinked them to a source that has infinitely more wisdom on the subject than I.
Back to it… WSSSSSSTTT! PSSSSSSSHHHHHT! On Thursday night last week, the OLPC Learning Club of DC (OLPC-LC-DC… I am not making this up) had dozens of these computers “talking” to WSSSSSSTTT! PSSSSSSSHHHHHT! one another. In a room filled with over 50 OLPC LC DC members, these sounds signaled an exciting moment: the laptops that hold the promise of community building, “off grid” journaling and educating in the first, second and third worlds were getting to know one another via their measure software for the first time in a group that large.
Of the group’s goal and purpose, group organizer and long-time “user grouper” Mike Lee said it best (paraphrasing from my handwritten, low-tech notes): “Some have bought the XO because it’s a cool new gadget, others are parents with children, or educators who have expert areas. This group is about bringing all of these folks together to understand the possibilities and limitations of the technology and to build useful and interesting things for the XO.”
Although they refrained from talking in WSSSSSSTTTs and PSSSSSSSHHHHHTs, they spoke a language almost as cryptic and intriguing to the outside ear. Mike fielded and facilitated questions about Sugar, Python, Pippy, Jabber and Pygame, and storage and charging devices. As insightful as they were articulate, Luke (who started with Linux in 2nd grade), Mackenzie (who blogs about Ubuntu Linux Tips & Tricks) and Herbert (interning at NASDAQ and experimenting with XO’s Pippy, TamTam and Turtle Art) assisted Mike and others in answering a lot of questions, as well as helping the crowd troubleshoot their machines. Here they are telling us all what is up!

In sum: It was nothing short of amazing.
And so, for a non-tech, but pro-community strategist/social scientist-type… for me to wrap up an extremely complicated topic that has most interesting cultural and social implications, I have put together a set of shout-outs and resources:





9 Nov
While the event happened almost 3 weeks ago, the buzz about Startup Weekend is still alive and well. Not only was there a front-of-the-business section article in the Washington Post on Monday, but there have been at least a dozen+ blog posts about it, and at least triple that in comments scattered throughout these posts.
And that is the beginning of what I want to focus on in this post: the comments. Event more accurately, the fact that these comments are in conversation with one another. And, to take it one step further, I believe that they are signs of a community in the early stages of development. To understand how I made this leap and why it matters, check it out…
The renowned social scientist Emile Durkheim, studied - among other things - the penal codes of a society to understand their value system. Durkheim visualized the legal system as a shadow cast down from a larger body — the workings, values and ideology of a society.

To apply this same methodology, the blog posts, WaPo article, and comments from Startup Weekend are in fact a shadow being cast for us — in the DC area — and for the rest of the country, for that matter, to read as an emerging body of energy, ideas and entrepreneurism. They tell the story.
But there’s more… study the event calendars on Upcoming, look at the groups on Facebook and Ning… in fact, I would say that the shadow is even bigger than the weekend event because there are a dozen+ other groups and events thriving throughout the area, such as the DC Technology Group, NextDC, BarCamp DC, Refresh DC, DC Tech Beat, DC Social Media Club, Facebook Developers Garage, Yahoo! Citizen 2.0 Summit, Tech Cocktail, Meet-up groups that cover everything from blogging to PHP… the list goes on. I would also add to this the actual COMPANIES that are involved with these events and embody/promote/support these kinds of ideas (off the top of my head, places like Viget, nclud, and *shameless plug for employer* New Media Strategies). WHOA, BIG SHADOW. But there is MORE!
After attending the Yahoo! event last night, I was also reminded that there are dozens of OTHER GROUPS and people out there that I have yet to even discover or hear about… but would LOVE TO (I am sure that this is analagous to “Hortoon Hears A Who” … more than meets the eye).

The groups and events I have listed just happen to be the ones that I have been to or heard about… and at them, I seem to see a lot of the same people getting involved in, but I would love for this universe to grow, better communicate with others interested in or already doing similar things. Support, camaraderie, collaboration. Locally, nationally.
So, taking stock of what we have…
Step #3:
Work to bring these worlds together. I hope to continue having this dialog and seeing the Community (capital “C”) grow. From seeing how hard they work in these communities and having some really inspirational conversations with them, I know folks like Will Kern, Brian Wynne Williams, Greg Gershman, Moses McCall, Jesse Thomas, Martin Ringlein, Justin Thorp, Nick O’Neill, Peter Corbett, and Frank Gruber (to name a few!) are all similarly interested in and passionate about this/these endeavor(s). Would love feedback — and please let me know how I can facilitate or help in any of these efforts.
(Kinda cheezy, but you get the point)
